''Scaphognathus'' was a

pterosaur Pterosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earli ...

that lived around

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

during the

Late Jurassic The Late Jurassic is the third Epoch (geology), epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time scale, geologic time from 161.5 ± 1.0 to 143.1 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic stratum, strata.Owen ...

. It had a wingspan of 0.9 m (3 ft).

Naming

The first known ''Scaphognathus'' specimen was described in 1831 by August Goldfuss who mistook the tailless specimen for a new ''Pterodactylus'' species: ''P. crassirostris''. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

means "fat snout" in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. This specimen was an incomplete adult with a 0.9 m (3 ft) wingspan recovered from the Solnhofen strata near

Eichstätt Eichstätt () is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt. It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Dioce ...

. In 1858 Johann Wagner referred the species to ''

Rhamphorhynchus ''Rhamphorhynchus'' (, from Ancient Greek ''rhamphos'' meaning "beak" and ''rhynchus'' meaning "snout") is a genus of long-tailed pterosaurs in the Jurassic period. Less specialized than contemporary, short-tailed pterodactyloid pterosaurs such ...

''. After recognising the fundamentally different snout shape, Wagner, after previous failed attempts by

Leopold Fitzinger Leopold Joseph Franz Johann Fitzinger (13 April 1802 – 20 September 1884) was an Austrian zoologist. Fitzinger was born in Vienna and studied botany at the University of Vienna under Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin. He worked at the Vienna Naturhis ...

and

Christoph Gottfried Andreas Giebel Christoph Gottfried Andreas Giebel (13 September 1820 – 14 November 1881) was a German zoologist and palaeontologist. He was a professor of zoology at the University of Halle where he managed the zoology collections at the museum. His interests ...

, who used preoccupied names, in 1861 named a distinct genus: ''Scaphognathus'', derived from Greek ''skaphe'', "boat" or "tub", and ''gnathos'', "jaw", in reference to the blunt shape of the lower jaws. In the early twentieth century, the "rhamphorhynchoid" nature of ''S. crassirostris'' was recognized after the discovery of the second specimen in Mühlheim, whose long tail was preserved. The second ''Scaphognathus'' specimen was more complete than its predecessor, but only half the size (twenty inch wingspan) and with partially ossified bones. These characters indicate that the second specimen was a juvenile.

Description

The ''Scaphognathus'' is known from three specimens, all of which originated in the

Kimmeridgian In the geologic timescale, the Kimmeridgian is an age in the Late Jurassic Epoch and a stage in the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 154.8 ±0.8 Ma and 149.2 ±0.7 Ma (million years ago). The Kimmeridgian follows the Oxfordian ...

-ageWeishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Late Jurassic, Europe)." In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.): The Dinosauria, 2nd, Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 545–549. .

Solnhofen Limestone The Solnhofen Limestone or Solnhofen Plattenkalk, formally known as the Altmühltal Formation, is a Jurassic Konservat-Lagerstätte that preserves a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms, including highly detailed imprints of soft bodied organi ...

."Scaphognathus." In: Cranfield, Ingrid (ed.). ''The Illustrated Directory of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Creatures''. London: Salamander Books, Ltd. Pp. 308–309. Physically it was very similar to ''Rhamphorhynchus'', albeit with notable cranial differences. For one, ''Scaphognathus'' had a proportionately shorter skull (4.5 in) with a blunter tip and a larger

antorbital fenestra An antorbital fenestra (plural: fenestrae) is an opening in the skull that is in front of the eye sockets. This skull character is largely associated with Archosauriformes, archosauriforms, first appearing during the Triassic Period. Among Extant ...

. Its teeth oriented vertically rather than horizontally. The traditional count of them held that eighteen teeth were in the upper jaws and ten in the lower. S. Christopher Bennett, studying a new third specimen, SMNS 59395, in 2004 determined there were only sixteen teeth in the upper jaws, the higher previous number having been caused by incorrectly adding replacement teeth. Comparisons between the scleral rings of ''Scaphognathus'' and modern birds and reptiles suggest that it may have been diurnal. This may also indicate

niche partitioning In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for e ...

with contemporary pterosaurs inferred to be

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

, such as '' Ctenochasma'' and ''

''.

Classification

The ''cladogram'' (family tree) of rhamphorhynchids below is the result of a large

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

analysis published by Andres & Myers in 2013.

References

Literature

*Fantastic Facts About Dinosaurs ()

External links

The Pterosaur Database (pdf)
{{Portalbar, Paleontology, Germany Late Jurassic pterosaurs of Europe Rhamphorhynchidae Taxa named by Johann Andreas Wagner Fossil taxa described in 1861